Oceanside council advised to reject water deal

Ray Huard

Oceanside officials are advising the City Council to reject as too expensive an offer to buy drinking water from the planned Poseidon Resources desalination plant in Carlsbad that would tap into the ocean.

“For the city it doesn’t make sense for several reasons, one of which is the cost,” Water Utilities Director Cari Dale said Monday.

Dale, in a report to the council, said the deal offered by Poseidon would add $1.5 million to the price the city pays for water, starting in 2016, the first year that the desalination plant is expected to produce water.

The San Diego Water Authority, which provides most of the water to Oceanside and throughout the county, is considering a 30-year purchase agreement with Poseidon Resources.

Before the deal is made final, the authority offered regional water agencies, including the city of Oceanside, an option to enter into their own agreements to buy water directly from Poseidon.

Although the water would initially be more expensive than what the Water Authority buys from the Los Angeles-based Metropolitan Water Authority, the county agency said the Poseidon deal would help diversify the county’s water supply.

Water Authority officials also predict that, over time, water from Poseidon will be cheaper than water from the Metropolitan Water Authority.

The council is slated to vote on the matter at its 4 p.m. Wednesday meeting in council chambers, 300 N. Coast Highway.

For Oceanside, the price per acre-foot of water from Poseidon would be $2,377 starting in 2016 compared with $1,777 per acre-foot for water the city would buy from the Water Authority. An acre-foot is about 326,000 gallons, or about enough for two typical single-family households for a year.

Not only would the water from Poseidon be more expensive, but Dale said Oceanside is gradually increasing the amount of water it produces on its own at its Mission Basin Groundwater Facility, which treats brackish groundwater into drinking water.

The city now produces 15 percent of its water through the Mission Basin plant, and that is expected to increase to about 24 percent next year with the completion of a new pump station. The rest of the water comes from the county Water Authority.

“We’ve been constructing this pump station to optimize the groundwater facility,” Dale said.